Police officers converge at the Incident Command Post near Oakdale High School following a Tuesday evening shooting and subsequent manhunt.
Marg Jackson/The Leader

Two men fired shots at an Oakdale police officer on Tuesday afternoon, Jan. 29 which resulted in a multi-agency dragnet and the eventual arrest of one suspect. No officers were hurt or struck by the gunfire and one suspect remains at large.

Around 5:10 p.m. police received a call of suspicious subjects near the area of Birdwell Street and Davitt Avenue. When officers arrived they found a sleeping bag wrapped around a shotgun. Officers continued to search the area and found two subjects walking on Birdwell Avenue. One of the subjects fired a gun at one of the officers.

“When the officers spotted the subjects, one ran eastbound and the other west,” said Oakdale Police Chief Lester Jenkins. “The guy running east fired a shot at the officer.”

Oakdale Police “locked down” the area to contain a perimeter to search for the subjects in the area of South Yosemite Avenue to West F Street.

Residents reported scores of police cars with lights and sirens converging on Oakdale streets as well as law enforcement helicopters using search lights overhead. Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department, Modesto Police, Ceres Police, and California Highway Patrol units responded to the city to assist in the incident.

According to Chief Jenkins, a Ceres police officer located one of the suspects in a yard of Mann Court around 6:07 p.m. At the time, police radio traffic identified the person taken into custody as Eric Silva of Riverbank.

Oakdale High School was locked down and students for night courses at the facility were turned away as classes were cancelled due to the incident.

Police with assistance from the Modesto PD SWAT team were going door-to-door into the evening to search for the additional suspect.

As the investigation continued, there was word that a near-by house had been burglarized with firearms taken. It is unknown if the firearms used and recovered were related to the burglary.